A 2012 Retrospective

I know, I know, but I can’t resist going along with the fashion just a little.

2012 has been a big year for me. It started out pretty tamely, selling a couple of books per month and working on adding to my book list. Sorcerer’s Code was published in December 2011, and I took up the project that eventually became Legacy shortly after the turn of the year.

In late January/early February, the seeds were planted for the revolution. I started talking with my friend M. Todd Gallowglas about the possibility of making a sojourn to San Jose, CA for the San Jose Fantasy Faire, which was going to be featuring a panel of independent fantasy authors. Since I hadn’t had the chance to travel in a while (and I have a travel bug) I decided to jump on board.

That decision changed the entire year.

The promotion that I did alongside Mr. Gallowglas sold dozens of copies of my books, thanks to running it just before the KDP Select algorithms made free giveaway copies basically useless in their recommendation queues. The faire itself was pretty successful, since about 8 or 9 strangers bought paperback copies ofElegy on a whim. The confidence instilled in me by complete strangers looking at my books and deciding that they looked interesting enough to buy a signed copy from a guy they’d never heard of really transformed me.

It wasn’t long after that I published Legacy, which was a significant leap forward in my storytelling and novel-writing ability. (Some have commented that it looks so different from Elegy that it might well be written by a different person. Given that the difference was 3 1/2 years of learning and the catapult forward granted to me by the initial publication, there’s some truth to that.)

Around the same time, we were in talks with a few of the writers who attended the SJFF and some other friends to form an author’s alliance, which became the Genre Underground. Our first promotion at the beginning of July went fairly well, and working with them has been a great privilege and honor throughout the year.

Just in time for my first anniversary as an author, I published Sorcerer’s Crime, which is still one of my favorite stories. A darker take on Moncrief’s voice was something I’d been wanting to try, and I personally think I nailed it.

Around August, I started work on my first science fiction project, which is now Sins of the Father. It took 58 days to write almost 83,000 words, and then another month of revision pushed it up over 90,000. If the first month is any indication, it will probably be my most successful work within a pretty short period of time.

The end of the year has given me the chance to write the next Moncrief story, which will be called Sorcerer’s Blood. It’s also allowed me to begin work on what will eventually be Destiny, the final installment ofThe Arbiter Codex.

Throughout the entire year, I’ve gotten a lot of help and support from my writer’s group and my darling wife. The fans, though they are still few and far between, have been amazing. I feel so privileged to be touching lives with my stories, and I’m looking forward to creating so much more. I’m so glad that I’ve reached people, and I hope that more will discover my work in the coming year. I’m looking forward to publishing at least two novels and two or three novelettes next year, assuming that all goes well.